Blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot San Leonardo is the iconic wine of San Leonardo Estate, created by Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga and legendary winemaker Giacomo Tachis. This is a wine that reflects the uniqueness of its terroir, that ‘warm northern character’ which allows no over-opulence or excessive alcohol, but rather infuses the wine with a judicious natural balance. A classic Bordeaux blend of breed, aristocratic elegance, and extraordinary longevity. Lengthy spontaneous fermentations encourage the extraction of the noble tannins, while the wine is matured according to practices honed over many years: 24 months in new, once - and -twice-used French barrels, followed by the assemblage of the final wine, and finally a minimum of 20 months of bottle-ageing. Food Matchings Red meats, poultry, roasts, braised or stewed meats, game and mature cheeses.

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Tenuta San Leonardo in Trentino has been home to the Guerrieri Gonzaga family for over three hundred years, but it is only since the second half of the twentieth century, when Marchese Carlo took over, that this estate began to take wine production seriously. Following a spell working at Tenuta San Guido with the creator of Sassicaia, Mario Incisa della Rocchetta, he was inspired to see if the clay-limestone soils of his family estate could yield similar results to those achieved by his mentor. In 1978 the first Cabernet Sauvignon vines joined the Merlot and Carmenère that had long been planted, and in 1982 the first vintage of the flagship San Leonardo was produced. The wine has changed very little since then. The estate covers an overall area of 300 hectares, of which the vineyards, planted to red grapes beginning at an elevation of 150 metres, amount to 30 hectares. Merlot is planted in pebble-rich soils that were once the bed of a tributary of the Adige, while Cabernet Sauvignon and the old vineyards of Carmenère are in predominantly sandy soils. All are well-drained, low-fertility soils that yield wines with truly unusual levels of anthocyanins, and not just for the Trentino. In 2015, San Leonardo launched a project of conversion to organic viticulture, which concluded successfully in late 2018 with the award of official certification. In the same year, the BWA Friends of Biodiversity organisation certified San Leonardo as a Friend of Biodiversity, testifying to San Leonardo ́s deep commitment to preserving the character of its growing area. Recent vintages display the same timeless elegance and subtlety as the first, traits that are echoed through the rest of the range, and that have helped secure San Leonardo’s place in the pantheon of great Italian wineries.

• Cabernet Franc

  Cabernet Franc is widely planted in Bordeaux and is the most important black grape grown in the Loire. In the Médoc it may constitute up to 15% of a typical vineyard - it is always blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and is used to add bouquet and complexity to the wines. It is more widely used in St.Emilion where it adapts well to the cooler and moister clay soils - Cheval Blanc is the most famous Cabernet Franc wine in the world, with the final blend consisting of up to 65% of the grape.
  Cabernet Franc thrives in the Loire where the cooler growing conditions serve to accentuate the grape's herbaceous, grassy, lead pencil aromas. The best wines come from the tuffeaux limestone slopes of Chinon and Bourgeil where growers such as Jacky Blot produce intense well-structured wines that possess excellent cellaring potential.
  

• Cabernet Sauvignon

  The most famous red wine grape in the world and one of the most widely planted.
  It is adaptable to a wide range of soils, although it performs particularly well on well-drained, low-fertile soils. It has small, dusty, black-blue berries with thick skins that produce deeply coloured, full-bodied wines with notable tannins. Its spiritual home is the Médoc and Graves regions of Bordeaux where it thrives on the well-drained gravel-rich soils producing tannic wines with piercing blackcurrant fruits that develop complex cedarwood and cigar box nuances when fully mature.
  
  The grape is widely planted in California where Cabernet Sauvignon based wines are distinguished by their rich mixture of cassis, mint, eucalyptus and vanilla oak. It is planted across Australia and with particular success in Coonawarra where it is suited to the famed Terra Rossa soil. In Italy barrique aged Cabernet Sauvignon is a key component in Super Tuscans such as Tignanello and Sassicaia, either on its own or as part of a blend with Sangiovese
  

• Carmenérè

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• Merlot

  The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.
  In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.
  
  Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.